Cattle Grazing Fiasco

Blacka Blogger has now heard confirmation of what we have always strongly suspected: that the daft cattle grazing plan of SWT and certain National Park and Natural England officials was never going to work. The latest word comes from an authoritative source quite independent of Sheffield Wildlife Trust (whose word has never been reliable in such things). The idea of putting farm cattle on a huge enclosure covering tracts of the wildest scenery on Blacka was absurd. How, for instance, can you monitor beasts when they get into parts of the site that men struggle to access in certain months of the year (July and August)? The whole cattle grazing plan is now in crisis because the farmer providing the cattle is not happy with having his cattle on such a large difficult to monitor site when local people don't want them. Is this not what SWT were being told by regular users for several years?

The story initially put about by SWT was that the cattle had not appeared this year because of the slow delivery of Blue Tongue vaccine. Then a small number of the cows arrived on the sheep pasture. But instead of moving onto the intended destination - the large specially enclosed mixed moorland section- they have stayed in with the sheep. It's clear, having spoken with my authoritative source, that there is a lot of misinformation flying around. It's also a fair guess that SWT will perform, true to their record in producing more misinformation in an effort to play the blame game.

Stories about local people taking gates off their hinges and setting dogs onto cattle do not ring true to me. But it's always hard to prove that something did not happen once the rumours are circulated. All I can say is that I've not seen any evidence of it despite daily walking on Blacka and making it my business to be fairly observant.

But the farmer who provides the animals is evidently aware that his animals are caught up in a dispute about barbed wire, general poor management and public relations from SWT and arguments about nature reserve status and different visions for Blacka. So the word is that he is telling SWT that if they want cattle here they should get their own. They won't like that because it would take them away from their deskbound jobs producing paperwork tonnage. That was another of the farmer's complaints - SWT were rarely to be seen on a site which is anyway difficult to monitor.